NFL suspends umpire Roy Ellison for conduct toward Trent Williams

NFL umpire Roy Ellison did indeed make profane and derogatory statements toward Washington offensive lineman Trent Williams on Sunday, and now Ellison will be disciplined.

The league has announced that Ellison is suspended without pay for one game for using inappropriate language toward Williams.

The suspension comes after Williams said following Sunday’s game that Ellison had called him “garbage [expletive] disrespectful [expletive]” during the game. Former NFL head of officiating Mike Pereira revealed this week that it wasn’t the first time Ellison had been accused of abusive language toward players, and that Pereira himself had previously warned Ellison that it better not happen again.

When it did happen again, the NFL had no choice but to act. And now Ellison will sit this week out.

Trent Williams says an official says something who in turn says Williams also said something – during game when everyone acknowledges there are curse words thrown around all day and there is no audio (let alone audio and video) – the official gets suspended.

The NFL needs to realize that people are already highly skeptical that referees are A) competent and B) impartial.

There’s no way Ellison can ever be considered impartial again. Every call he makes or doesn’t make will be questionable. Being an NFL ref REQUIRES being beyond reproach — something now impossible for Ellison — and so yes, he should have been permanently banned from the NFL.

Has anyone checked with his teammates to indeed confirm if Williams is “garbage [expletive] disrespectful [expletive]”? I’m no lawyer, but Ump may have a case. It’s not slander if it true, right Flo’rio?

So they’ll suspend a ref for talking inappropriately, but they won’t suspend them when they can’t do the job they were hired to do. There have been some epically bad officiated games this season and none of them ever get suspended. Ron Winters and his crew should have been fired yrs. ago. That guy is so bad, the NFL should be embarrassed to employ him.

What a joke.. The NFL, aka, King Roger, is acting so sanctimonious… Do they, the NFL, expect us mere mortals to believe that all the dialogue on a football field is of the choirboy ilk?? Come on man!!!

Haha, finally some discipline towards the blind zebras! I love it! Now if the NFL could just start to suspend them for blown or bad calls. I bet if Goodell instituted a policy like that, take away a game check or nail em with a fine, you’d NEVER have any officiating controversies. Its getting worse and worse, almost every week. Threaten the refs where it hurts-their pocketbook!

According to earlier stories there is audio of the incident. I read that the skins had all linemen mic’d for the game. I don’t think they’d suspend the guy if it was all heresay. I hope the audio is released.

Being a ref is a tough thankless job. Players are allowed to cuss at the refs, and the refs just have to take it.

How many of you armchair quarterbacks think you could handle being harassed by players and fans without saying anything back? Ya, I didn’t think so.
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Great point.

I jokingly tell people that if I had known that officiating is more about people management than it is simply learning the rules and making calls, I wouldn’t have ever gotten into refereeing. But the hardest thing about officiating, IMHO, is keeping your cool when others around you have lost theirs. Yes, it’s tough to simply “take an earful.” But officials have their own tools for dealing with it. Losing your cool and cursing out a player is not in the officials’ toolkit. Assuming since there was a suspension that he is guilty, he deserved to be suspended. Hopefully he learns and, in the future, finds a better way to deal with angry and emotional players.

Really? The league is just so soft these days. Trent can punch Richard Sherman in the face with no consequence, but when he whines about being called some “mean words” by an official, he can’t take it. I rather see the players who complain about referees cussing get suspended than the referees themselves. This is a violent sport. There will be offensive language.

Naw, I agree w Trent Williams. Refs shouldn’t be calling out players, what the Hell is that?? Bizzarre, that’s what… This ain’t High School, refs should NOT be offering up criticism/talking smack at players!

I have no problem with suspending Ellison ,but I’m a little concerned that Pereira’s story about Ellison’s conduct seemed almost to be gospel for the league. There is no problem with him sharing the story with the viewers,after all that’s his job,but the league doesn’t have the right to use it as a ‘second ‘ act. After all, there could be an impropriety due to the way Pereira feels about some refs as opposed to others if Blandino chooses to use Pereira’s take in order to administer discipline.